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Scalpers Profit from PlayStation 3 Shortage

The biggest winners this holiday season may not be the gamers, but the profiteers.

Sony's PlayStation 3 debuted in stores today, and the unwashed masses that have been camped out in front of retailers such as Best Buy, Target and Wal-Mart finally got their hands on the shiny new system. One would think that the next step for those who scored a system would be to race home and play some Genji or Resistance: Fall of Man, but for a great many of these early-adopters, the plan is instead to resell the system at a profit on auction sites like eBay.

There are over twenty thousand systems up for bidding on eBay, and the number being sold is increasing with every passing hour. Additional systems are being sold through other auction sites like Yahoo! Auctions, and community sites like Craigslist. Five thousand systems or pre-orders have already been sold on eBay. PlayStation 3 consoles are selling for anywhere from $1500 to $3000, not counting the auctions concluding at outrageous prices, like those closing at upwards of $30,000, which are undoubtedly the work of false bidders out to make things harder for the scalpers.

Scarcity is the driving force behind the resale listings from these scalpers. Sony was not able to meet the 400,000 system mark that was previously announced, with many retailers receiving far fewer systems than anticipated, if any at all. The EB Games and GameStop stores recently revealed that only 60% of their pre-orders would be fulfilled and that many of their 60GB pre-orders would be getting replaced by 20GB systems. It's difficult to ascertain exactly how many systems have been released in North America, but 25,000 or more units being resold within hours of launch is a very interesting statistic. We'll be keeping an eye on the PlayStation 3 auctions throughout the holiday season to figure out exactly how many systems were in fact purchased by the end users and not by the reselling profiteers.